This is topic Sound formats in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004709
Posted by Alex Grasic (Member # 1371) on 03-25-2003, 11:52 PM:
 
I am looking for every available sound format in use today for 35mm film. Can anyone help with finding a list? or starting one here?

Thanks
 
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 03-26-2003, 12:34 AM:
 
As far as formats still currently in use they are:

Academy Mono Optical
Dolby A Stereo with surround (Also includes the SVA clones such as Ultra*Stereo and DTS Stereo)
Dolby Spectral Recording (SR) and its 'clones'
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital EX
DTS Digital
DTS-ES
Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) 6-channel and 8-channel
Double System Magnetic and Digital

-Aaron
 
Posted by Alex Grasic (Member # 1371) on 03-26-2003, 12:44 AM:
 
Would Dolby EX qualify as a sound format in itself?
 
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 03-26-2003, 12:46 AM:
 
I forgot to add EX. OOPS! [Eek!]

-Aaron
 
Posted by Alex Grasic (Member # 1371) on 03-26-2003, 12:48 AM:
 
Also, I'm not too familiar with SDDS but there is 8 channel and 16 channel? Would these two perhaps present two different formats on some level?
 
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 03-26-2003, 12:49 AM:
 
Just 6 and 8 channels (7 and 9 if you count EX) for SDDS. Since they are both derived from the same track (The SDDS-8 mix is almost always 'backwards-compatible' to 6-channel setups) I wouldn't count them as two.
-Aaron
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-26-2003, 02:54 AM:
 
quote:
As far as formats still currently in use they are:

Academy Mono Optical
Which can be subdivided into...and there are probably a few I've forgotten.
Most of these are no longer in use apart from on archival elements, and some are not 'Academy mono' as many early formats didn't equalise according to the Academy curve.
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-26-2003, 07:37 AM:
 
Alex wrote:

quote:
I am looking for every available sound format in use today for 35mm film. Can anyone help with finding a list? or starting one here?
What do you mean by 'in use today'? Tracks being recorded today for new films? Tracks being printed on new prints being made today of old films? Tracks being played in cinemas today from old prints?

Would you include film being run in 'special venue' type setups? What abput 7 track mag with Cinerama, that is still being run today, and I understand that test footage has recently been shot with the Kinopanorama camera, if a new film is made in that format, I guess it would still use mag fullcoat, as that is what the Cinerama theatres are set up to show, more likely seven channels, rather than the Kinorama nine.

If you mean new production, what about this new DTS system, which plays from a hard disk, is that available yet, and does it count as a different format?

Come to that, what do you mean by a 'format', the number and disposition of channels, or the way they are recorded on the print, or both?

Leo, I don't think for this purpose I would count the different types of optical track as being different formats, because they are all the same in terms of channels (one centre front) and use the same processing between sound head and speaker. Anything which produces a different result, e.g. Perspecta, or needs different equipment, e.g. push-pull, or anything which doesn't use the Academy filter, I would class as a different format.

Of course, from a lab, or archive point of view these different optical tracks are all different formats.

Is theatrical Dolby Digital always 5.1 channels, or can it have anything from 1 to 5.1, as with Laserdisc and DVD.

Speaking of DVD, try working out how many different sound formats it is possible for a DVD to carry, including number of channels, use or otherwise of a pro-logic matrix, sampling frequency, number of bits, encoding (PCM, DD, DTS and Mpeg) and centre surround (DD EX and DTS ES matrix or discrete. It starts to make sound on 35mm look simple. I gave up counting when I got somewhere close to a hundred. How many of these have ever actually been used is another matter.

[ 03-26-2003, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: Stephen Furley ]
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 10:35 AM:
 
quote:
The SDDS-8 mix is almost always 'backwards-compatible' to 6-channel setups
It is always compatible since the downmix is done by the processor during playback.
I wouldn`t classify EX or ES or SDDS 6/8 as different formats from their "parent" format but rather as variations, like Dolby Stereo with or without surround.
The dts XD10 is not a new format but rather new playback hardware, although the addition of channels is definitely a big upgrade.
It unites theatrical and home dts playback in one unit. One could look at them as two different formats from the same manufacturer.
 
Posted by Christopher Seo (Member # 7) on 03-26-2003, 10:40 AM:
 
Leo,

How does dual track unilateral VA differ from RCA duplex? The duplex track contains what looks like two unilateral tracks facing inward toward each other, correct?
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-26-2003, 10:43 AM:
 
Right. The difference was in the light source used in the sound camera. If I'm remembering correctly, the light in RCA sound cameras was more heavily balanced toward the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, because (according to RCA) the resulting track was better suited to the light source in a tungsten exciter bulb.
 
Posted by Alex Grasic (Member # 1371) on 03-26-2003, 11:00 AM:
 
Wow, a whole lot of information here. I guess I wasn't specific enough with my question. What I am looking for is the formats that are typically associated with any movie, new or old, so just your sdds8, dts (any type, nothing too specific), dolby digital, dobly sr, dolby A. Just the general formats...if that is anymore specific than my last request.
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 11:45 AM:
 
No, that is still very vague. If you are asking about new mainstream releases in the US and Europe, one could say that they are typically in the so-called quad format: SDDS, dts, SR-D, all on one print.
Note that SR-D always stands for Dolby SR + Digital, although it is often mistaken as meaning just Dolby D (which is accompanied by the SR track in all cases anyway).
But if you say "old or new", that is not very specific at all...

Analogue optical sound was introduced in 1927 (the first demonstration was in Berlin BTW, in 1922 or 23). Since then, you could say every movie had some kind of analogue optical soundtrack, and since the 1950s, maybe an analogue magnetic soundtrack instead. There were also movies which had both, but that would be too complicated again to explain here.

You can have 4-channel magnetic with 35mm, and 6-channel with 70mm.
Since the mid 1970s, more and more movies had the 4-channel analogue optical Dolby Stereo format. The breakthrough came with Star Wars in 1977, since then most big productions had it.
In 1987, Dolby introduced SR, which is an improved noise reduction, not a new format as such.

Dolby Digital came in 1992, dts in 93, SDDS in 94.
 
Posted by Hugh McCullough (Member # 1542) on 03-26-2003, 11:52 AM:
 
What about Dolby Quintaphonic four track magnetic sound
 
Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-26-2003, 12:41 PM:
 
Michael said, "Note that SR-D always stands for Dolby SR + Digital, although it is often mistaken as meaning just Dolby D (which is accompanied by the SR track in all cases anyway)."

I do not believe that is correct. When Dolby Digital was first introduced, it was introduced under the name "Dolby SR-D" (i.e. Dolby Spectral Recording -- Digital). The name "SR-D" simply means "Dolby Digital". Labelling of leaders by labs continues to say "SRD" instead of "DD".

It is for this reason that a quad-format print is labelled on the leader "SR/SRD/SDDS/DTS"; if "SRD" necessarily meant "SR and Dolby Digital," then it would not be so-labelled.

But in any event, yes, when Dolby Digital is present, the analog track is supposed to always be Dolby SR, rather than Dolby A or mono. But this is a marketting/administrative requirement, not a technical one. A print with Dolby Digital could carry a Dolby A -format analog track, though it would be confusing and Is Not Done.

--jhawk
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 12:56 PM:
 
No jhawk. The Dolby glossary of film terms also explains it specifically that way.
SR/SR-D is simply wrong (or maybe just superfluous).
The reason for this is that the first digital format CDS failed on the market because it replaced the analogue track and so had no backup.
Dolby made a lot of effort to communicate to customers that their format would have both. Many theater owners would not have bought it because digital sound was stigmatised as dropping out into silence when there was a problem. They also had to have reserve prints with analogue tracks.
The early Dolby catalogues used a lot of large and bold type to make it absolutely clear that the new format would only need single prints and was failsafe because of the fallback option.
That is why they called it Dolby Stereo Spectral Recording AND Digital.

Consequently using the term just for Dolby D is wrong usage. You couldn`t call DVD Dolby SR-D.
They also had to get rid of the Stereo part in the name of the formats because most people, and probably all potential buyers of home equipment, think that Stereo just means two channels.
"Why Dolby Stereo? I already have stereo TV!!"
So they came up with Dolby Surround which in turn confused many less enlightened operators. Many cinema employees to this day think SR means surround.
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-26-2003, 01:08 PM:
 
Michael wrote:

quote:
Analogue optical sound was introduced in 1927 (the first demonstration was in Berlin BTW, in 1922 or 23).
Michael,

Optical sound goes back a lot longer than 1922. Have a look at the work of the Frenchman, Eugene Lauste at:

http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue22/22_lauste.htm

I can't say for sure that he was the first person to record optical sound, like most inventions it is difficult to find a single person, but he was certainly one of the first, but his name is now largely unknown.

I think the Tri-ergon system on 42mm film, the extra 7mm outside the perforations on one side carrying the track was about 1922.

Lee De Forest demonstrated optical sound films, using a V.D. track at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembly, in 1924. This used a track on normal 35mm film, in more or less the position still used today.

There were many other demonstrations of optical sound in the early '20s. do you know anything about the Berlin demonstrations, who gave them, the details of the system they used, etc.

Alex,

if you are including old systems, Perspecta was used on quite a large number of films between 1954 and 1957, there are still some prints around, and the Loew's Jersey has an original integrator installed; and used it to play 'Forbidden Planet' last year.
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 01:46 PM:
 
Stephen, interesting link. I had never heard about Lauste. But that is why we visit film-tech.
There is a house in Berlin with a plaquette that says "The first demonstration of sound film was given here in 192??" or something like that. A friend explained the details to me and I have read some more about it, but I can`t seem to remember any valuable details right now. I think the film was "Das Maedchen mit den Streichhoelzern" ("The Girl with the Matches"). I will have to research that.
There is some connection between that system and the system used later by Fox Movietone.
There are many interesting and unknown details in the history of technology. I found out only recently that there was a guy called Max Kladanowsky who showed films publicly in a varieté theater in Berlin a few months before the Lumières. But his system failed, and he was forgotten until the 1930s. Then he was "rediscovered". He was running a newspaper stand in Berlin, and his story was blown up to epic proportions by the Nazi propaganda.
Which ensured that he was completely forgotten later because everybody could say "him, no he was just a bit of Nazi propaganda."
But he may have been the first one to project movies publicly - we will probably never know.
 
Posted by Douglas Curry (Member # 1485) on 03-26-2003, 02:25 PM:
 
Aaron Sisemore Wrote
quote:

As far as formats still currently in use they are:
...Dolby A Stereo with surround (Also includes the SVA clones such as Ultra*Stereo and DTS Stereo)...
Don't forget Dolby Stereo without surround [Eek!]
We still got one auditorium with this lowly sound format [Roll Eyes]
or at least that's what it says in the label [Wink] I'd have to check with the boss to be sure..
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-26-2003, 02:29 PM:
 
quote:
Lee De Forest demonstrated optical sound films, using a V.D. track at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembly, in 1924. This used a track on normal 35mm film, in more or less the position still used today.
Do you have any references relating to De Forest's work in Britain? For a long time now I've been trying to find out why there is a small block of flats called Lee de Forest House in Scarborough. I can't say I've been very systematic or determined about it, but the mystery intrigues me because, AFAIK, he had no connection with Scarborough whatsoever. I'd guess it's unlikely that we're talking about a totally different Lee de Forest.
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-26-2003, 02:37 PM:
 
Michael wrote:

quote:
Stephen, interesting link. I had never heard about Lauste. But that is why we visit film-tech.
There is a house in Berlin with a plaquette that says "The first demonstration of sound film was given here in 192??" or something like that. A friend explained the details to me and I have read some more about it, but I can`t seem to remember any valuable details right now. I think the film was "Das Maedchen mit den Streichhoelzern" ("The Girl with the Matches"). I will have to research that.
The fact that the film had a title suggests that this may have been more than just a demonstration, or at least more than a technical one, unless they took an existing film, and added sound to it. Was this actually in the house, or in some other building which was previously on that site?

Then he wrote:
quote:

There are many interesting and unknown details in the history of technology. I found out only recently that there was a guy called Max Kladanowsky who showed films publicly in a varieté theater in Berlin a few months before the Lumières. But his system failed, and he was forgotten until the 1930s. Then he was "rediscovered". He was running a newspaper stand in Berlin, and his story was blown up to epic proportions by the Nazi propaganda.
Which ensured that he was completely forgotten later because everybody could say "him, no he was just a bit of Nazi propaganda."
But he may have been the first one to project movies publicly - we will probably never know.
The now-closed Museum of the Moving Image in London used to hold special events on Wednesday evenings. At one time they were arranged by Brian Coe, by that time retired from Kodak, and later by Stephen Herbert. There was a series of lectures under the title 'Countdown to Cinema', given in the year or so leading up to the centenary. You will be glad to know that Max Kladanowsky was included in these lectures. Maybe Leo remembers this, I don't know if he was there at that time.

Everyone always seems to ask 'Who invented cinema', or television, or the motor car, or whatever, and there really isn't an answer in most cases, many people made a contribution. In the case of cinema, it is usually Edison and the Lumières who are remembered, and possibly Dickson, but there were many pioneers, working in many countries, and I think they deserve to be remembered as well.
 
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-26-2003, 02:40 PM:
 
Don't forget the early work of Theodore Case and other pioneers:

http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~mhellman/history.html

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/sound/sound04.htm#soundindex

http://tig.colorist.org/pipermail/tig/2002-May/000851.html

http://www.eastman.org/5_timeline/1919.htm

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/notes.html

http://www.amps.net/newsletters/issue21/21_cine.htm

http://audiolabo.free.fr/revue1999/content/recording2.htm
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 03:01 PM:
 
It was a "real" film with a story. I am not sure if the building is original. It looks old, but it is in the center of Berlin and was probably bombed during the war.
I will see that I can do a little research. I think the plaquette also mentions the names of the people involved. That will make finding background info a lot easier.
 
Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 03-26-2003, 04:05 PM:
 
Film Sound History: Film Sound Formats
 
Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 03-26-2003, 04:20 PM:
 
Awhile back in this thread, Hugh McCullough mentioned a 4-track mag QUINTAPHONIC sound used by Tommy.

That got me to thinking...just how did they lay out the tracks on that? A group search turned up this information from 1997 on RAMT by Mark Baldock:

There is a magnetic 35mm version of "Tommy" which is recorded in
Quintaphonic. Track 2 carries the centre channel, tracks 1 and 3 are matrixed Dolby style to provide front left, front right, rear left and rear right. Dolby Labs built the CP100 cinema processor in the UK for this film.

The Google Toolbar Strikes Again!
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-26-2003, 04:59 PM:
 
Stephen, observe this link from the same site Jeffry pointed to

http://www.mtsu.edu/~smpte/twenties.html

I think the three guys mentioned there are the ones who showed that movie in Berlin in 1922. I have asked a friend who lives near the building to go and check what it says there.

edit - The Google Toolbar struck once more

http://www.luise-berlin.de/bms/bmstxt00/0006gese.htm

They showed that film in a cinema called "Alhambra" - it has no connection to the "Alhambra" I worked for - in November 1922 on Kurfuerstendamm in Berlin. Or there might be a connection but I would have to research that.
But nobody wanted to invest in the Tri-Ergon system so they sold it to Fox.
 
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 03-26-2003, 09:50 PM:
 
quote:
Don't forget Dolby Stereo without surround
I haven't seen a format 03 print since the early 80's. He did ask about formats 'currently' in use...

-Aaron
 
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-26-2003, 10:18 PM:
 
Actually Quintaphonic used DBX not Dolby NR
 
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-26-2003, 11:45 PM:
 
The first London engagement of the Quintaphonic version started out as Dolby NR. A licensing conflict prevented this from continuing, however (something about patents) so all subsequent Quintaphonic releases were DBX.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-27-2003, 03:03 AM:
 
quote:
The now-closed Museum of the Moving Image in London used to hold special events on Wednesday evenings. At one time they were arranged by Brian Coe, by that time retired from Kodak, and later by Stephen Herbert.
Both were there (Stephen was my boss) and organising Wednesday evening lectures in the MOMI fleapit. In the post-MOMI BFI, the programme planning people (or rather, their lords and masters) took the line that these were far too interesting and well-organised for the NFT, and in the end Stephen gave up the struggle. The last one I went to was a Charles Barr lecture on silent Hitchcock, which I guess would have been in early 2000. That was the final series.

Stephen now runs a publishing company: here is its website.
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 03:12 AM:
 
I heard that the movie museum in London had been closed, but I forgot why they closed it...?
 
Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 03-27-2003, 05:09 AM:
 
Michael,

You can obtain a wall chart of all the sound formats including experimental before the 1920s from the B.K.S.T.S – The Moving Image Society, Ealing Studios, Ealing Green, London W5 5ED.

Web site www.bksts.com

Film Gauges and Soundtracks.

Widescreen and 3-D Film Formats.

Motion Picture Colour Processes.

Motion Picture Systems for Special Venues and Theme Parks.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-27-2003, 06:37 AM:
 
quote:
I heard that the movie museum in London had been closed, but I forgot why they closed it...?
Internal politics within the organisation which ran it, the British Film Institute. The BFI operates on two sites in London: one in the city centre, just off Tottenham Court Road (which houses the National Film and Television Archive's office space, the BFI's reference library and administration offices) and one on the South Bank of the Thames, near Waterloo station. This housed the National Film Theatre, and until 1999 also contained MOMI. There are also other cultural facilities in the South Bank Centre, most notably the National [live stage] Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall (a classical music venue) and the Hayward [art] Gallery.

The South Bank Centre as a whole is a 1950s/60s concrete complex resembling a Soviet gulag. From the early '90s plans were afoot to knock the whole lot down and start again. The NFT/MOMI complex is far from perfect: one particular problem is that, being right under Waterloo Bridge, traffic noise tends to get into the auditoria. The BFI, therefore, wanted to put up a purpose-built complex to house NFT Mk. II, a revamped MOMI and the reference library relocated from their other site.

The official line is that in anticipation that this scheme really was going to happen, the BFI closed MOMI in 1999 in order to carry out preparatory work. Another official argument is that when the incoming Labour government abolished admission charges for the big public museums in London, the business case for a museum which levied a substantial admission charge (which MOMI did) was instantly undermined.

Both of these arguments are, IMHO, seriously flawed and were used as a hook on which to hang a politically motivated decision. On a public forum such as this I can't repeat what I have been told (by some of the key players involved) the actual reasons were, but they boil down to backstabbing and ego-massaging by a small number of senior figures.

Needless to say, the grand South Bank redevelopment scheme has so far come to very little. The BFI Imax cinema has been built next to Waterloo station, some of the access roads and paths have been tarted up and two new pedestrian bridges across the Thames have now appeared (which some genius of an architect has managed to position in such a way as to extend the time needed to walk from Waterloo into central London by 5-10 minutes), but really that's about it. The 1960s concrete jungle remains, and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future. MOMI, which was probably the most successful venture (if measured by the criterion of visitor numbers) the BFI ever did, has almost certainly gone for good.
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-27-2003, 08:55 AM:
 
quote:
the incoming Labour government abolished admission charges for the big public museums in London
And they provided no public funding instead?
I have seen the BKSTS wallcharts. A friend has them. They are very impressive. They are also impressively priced.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-27-2003, 09:17 AM:
 
quote:
And they provided no public funding instead?
Yes, they did provide funding. They increased the public funding level for some of the main London museums to make up the money lost by no longer charging members of the public to get in. MOMI, however, was never part of that system and therefore continued charging. The BFI argued that MOMI, which charged, would be competing for visitors with other museums (e.g. the Science Museum in South Kensington) which did not, and therefore its income was likely to decrease sharply.

As against which, (i) MOMI was a subject-specific museum, and (ii) a large proportion of its visitors were toursits from overseas, who tend not to worry so much about that sort of expense while on holiday. Where I live, in York, the National Railway Museum abolished admission charges only last year. There was a lot of speculation in the local press that this would reduce the revenues of tourist attractions which did charge (e.g. York Minster and the Viking museum); but so far, this has not proven to be the case.
 
Posted by Douglas Curry (Member # 1485) on 03-27-2003, 11:24 AM:
 
quote:
I haven't seen a format 03 print since the early 80's. He did ask about formats 'currently' in use...
-Aaron
[Eek!] Sorry about that.. [Big Grin] but it just goes to show how the old equipment still rocls on! [Razz]
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-27-2003, 04:18 PM:
 
Leo wrote:

quote:
two new pedestrian bridges across the Thames have now appeared (which some genius of an architect has managed to position in such a way as to extend the time needed to walk from Waterloo into central London by 5-10 minutes)
I don't understand this, One of the new Hungerford bridges is about four metres east of the old one, the other is maybe fifteen metres to he west, and they are slightly lower than the old one. The stairs are in a slightly different place, but this could only add a few seconds to the journey, not 5-10 minutes.

The only other bridge to have opened (eventually) is the'wobbly' one at Bankside, about a km to the East, and there was no bridge there before, so I don't see how this could lengthen a journey.
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-28-2003, 03:12 AM:
 
OK, I'll rephrase that: it's not so much the positioning of the bridges themselves, but the arrangements for getting at them. Attempting to do so on my last visit to London, the high-level walkway out of Waterloo station, which used to lead straight to the old Hungerford footbridge (the one attached to the same physical bridge as the railway line) was closed. So it was out of the main entrance, an interminable wait to cross the road, through Sutton Walk, failed attempts to get through a number of blocked-off footpaths, walk along riverbank and eventually up the stairs onto the footbridge.

At the other end of the original bridge there used to be a direct footpath straight into Charing Cross station, so you could walk from Waterloo to the Strand really very quickly. That has now gone, and now you have to walk all the way up Northumberland Avenue into Trafalgar Square. When I walked from Waterloo to Wells St. for a meeting earlier in the month (I usually stay overnight with relatives in Wimbledon to take advantage of the cheap off-peak tickets: £57 from York to London if you go the previous evening and stay overnight, compared to £210 for a day trip leaving before 0930 in the morning), I reckon that the new arrangements extended the walk by about ten minutes.

One welcome change, though: Red Ken's congestion charge did seem to have reduced traffic levels quite a bit, so at least I didn't get gassed on the way!
 
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 04-04-2003, 11:03 PM:
 
I twice visited the laboratory of Theadore W. Case, who worked with Sponneville to develop the first glass vacuum tube for recording sound on film. It was once a greenhouse, and after Lee De Forest took over their invention and proclaimed it his own, the building was used as am art studio for children. It is behind the Ithaca Museum in Auburn, New York, by which it is
administered. A young curator, Peter Jones, rescued the structure and returned it to use as a historical laboratory, called The Case Museum, containing much of the original apparatus, and a recreation of the studio where the first attempts to record sound on film were successful is located in the adjacent barn-like structure.
I attended an anniversary celebration there, sponsored by the Case descendants, and the non-profit society that supports the Case Museum.

Gerard
 
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 04-07-2003, 08:38 AM:
 
The "Birthplace of Talking Films" in Auburn NY, southeast of Rochester:

http://www.tourauburnny.com/case.html

http://www.cayuganet.org/cayugamuseum/Case%20Lab/case_lab.htm

http://www.cayuganet.org/cayugamuseum/Newsletter/new_page_5.htm
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-07-2003, 01:49 PM:
 
I am not so sure...I have visited that house in Berlin that I mentioned earlier. It says on the plaquette that they showed the first sound film there in the theater "Alhambra" - not the same one that I worked for, there is a hotel today in this house - on September 17, 1922. It mentions the TriErgon system and the names of the three engineers
also mentioned here.
This document also says that they sold the technology to Fox afterwards. So this museum seems to operate under a false claim.
 
Posted by Lionel Fouillen (Member # 1475) on 04-07-2003, 02:19 PM:
 
I hope the MOMI comes back to life one day. I really loved it and used to visit it every time I was in London. I especially enjoyed the "sound" section and the "pre-35mm" department. Although the booth could show a variety of formats (so says the souvenir brochure), the only film I endlessly saw there was some Dolby promotional trailer. Did they ever use to show something different in this auditorium during visiting hours?
 




Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.3.1.2